What She Could
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"Tilly, is that you?" said Mrs. Englefield, faintly, as the sunbeams were just quitting the room.
"Yes, mamma. Are you better?"
"Is there no one else here?"
"No, mamma. Aunt Candy is out; and I suppose the girls thought you were sleeping. Are you better, mamma? You have had a nice long nap."
"It's been horrid!" said Mrs. Englefield. "I have dreamed of every possible dreadful thing."
"But you feel better now?"
"My head aches – no – oh, my head! Tilly – "
"What, mamma?"
"I am going to be sick. I shan't be about again for a while, I know. I want you to do just what I tell you."
"Yes, mamma. What?"
"Anne and Letty are going away."
"Yes, mamma. I know."
"Do you know why, dear?"
The tone of tender, sorrowful sympathy in which this was said, overcame the child. As her mother's eyes with the question languidly sought her face, Matilda burst into tears and threw herself upon her neck.
"No, don't," said Mrs. Englefield, faintly, – "I can't bear it. Don't, Matilda! Rise up and listen to me."
Matilda did as she was told. She forced back her tears; stopped her sobs; dashed away the drops from the corners of her eyes; and sat up again to hear what her mother had to say to her.
"Give me some more water first. Anne and Letty are going away, Tilly; and I cannot be up and see to anything; and I can't hire a woman to do what's to be done. You tell Maria, from me, she must stay home from school and take care of the house. You will do what you can, Tilly – oh, my head! – you can put rooms in order and such things; and Maria must go down into the kitchen and get the breakfast – "
"Must Maria get the dinner too, mamma?"
"Yes, the dinner – "
"But can she, mamma?"
"She must; or else your aunt Candy will hire somebody to do it; and that will come out of what she pays me, and we shall not have enough left. She must, Tilly."
"But aunt Candy wouldn't mind, just while you are sick, mamma, would she?"
"Yes! I know. Just you do as I tell you; promise me that you will."
"I will, mamma."
"Promise me that Maria will."
"I guess she will, mamma. I'll try and make her. Shall I bring her here, and you tell her yourself?"
"No, indeed. Don't bring Maria here. She would make such a row she would kill me. Anne and Letty will see to things, till they go – oh, I can't talk any longer. Give me some more water."
She was presently dozing again; and Matilda, clasping her small hands, sat and thought over what was before her. It began to feel like a weight on her somewhere – on her shoulders, she thought, and lying on her heart too; and the longer she thought about it, the heavier and harder it pressed. The family to be broken up; her mother to be straitened for money – Matilda did not know very well what that meant, but it sounded disagreeable; her aunt suddenly presented in new and not pleasant colours; a general threatening cloud overshadowing all the future. Matilda began to get, what her strong little heart was not accustomed to, a feeling of real discouragement. What could she do? And then a word of the afternoon's lesson in the Sunday-School came freshly to mind. It had been quite new to Matilda, and had seemed to her very beautiful; but it took on quite another sort of beauty now, – "Cast thy burden upon the Lord; He shall sustain thee."
"Will He?" thought Matilda. "Can He? May I tell Him about all this? and will He help me to bear it, and help me to do all that work, and to make Maria do hers? But He will, for He has said so."
It was getting dusk in the room. Matilda knelt down by her chair, and poured out all her troubles into the Ear that would heed and could help her.
"Who's here?" said the voice of Mrs. Candy, coming in. "Who is that? Matilda? How did you come here, Tilly?"
"I have been taking care of my mother."
"Have you? How is she? Well, you run down-stairs; I'll take care of her now. It is better for you not to be here. Don't come in again, unless I give you leave. Now you may go."
"I wonder, must I mind her?" said Matilda to herself. "I do not see why. She is not mother; and if mother is sick, that does not give everybody else a right to say what I shall do. I think it is very queer of Aunt Candy to take that way with me."
And I am afraid Matilda's head was carried a little with the air which was, to be sure, natural to her, and not unpretty, and yet which spoke of a good deal of conscious competency. It is no more than justice to Matilda to say that she did not ever put the feeling into any ill-mannerly form. It hardly appeared at all, except in this turn of her head, which all her own family knew, laughed at, admired, and even loved. So she went down-stairs to the parlour.
"How is Aunt Marianne?" was the question from Clarissa. "Letty told me where you were. But, little one, it is not good for you to go into your mother's sick-room; you can do nothing, and you are better out. So mamma wishes you not to go in there till Aunt Marianne is better – you understand?"
"Clarissa too!" thought Matilda to herself. But she made no answer. She came by the fire to warm herself; for her mother's room had been cold.
"You shouldn't go so near the fire; you'll burn your dress," Clarissa remarked.
"No," said Matilda; and she said but that one word.
"You will take the colour out, if you do not set it on fire; and that is what I meant. That is your best dress, Tilly."
It was true; and, sorely against her will, Matilda stepped a little back.
"You were a great while at Sunday-School to-day," Clarissa went on.
"No," said Matilda; "not longer than usual."
"What do you learn there?"
"Why, cousin Issa, what do you teach at your Sunday-School?" said Matilda. For Clarissa had sheered off from Mr. Richmond's church, and gone into a neighbouring one which belonged to the denomination in which she had been brought up.
"That is not good manners to answer one question with another, little one."
"I thought one answer might serve for both," said Matilda.
"I am afraid it would not. For in my Sunday-School I teach the Catechism."
"Don't the Catechism tell about Jesus?"
"Some things, – of course."
"Our lessons tell all things about Him," said Matilda; "and that is what I learn."
"Do you learn about yourself?"
"What about myself?"
"How you ought to behave, and how you ought not to behave."
"Why, I think learning about Jesus teaches one that," said Matilda.
"I think there is nothing so good as coming home to learn about home," said Clarissa.
The talk did not run in a way to please Matilda, and she was silent. Presently they were called down to tea. Everybody suffering from a fit of taciturnity.
"Maria, sit up straight," said Mrs. Candy.
"I always sit so," was the answer.
"So, is not very graceful. Matilda does not sit so."
"Matilda was always straight; it's her way," said Maria.
"Well, make it your way too. Come! straighten up. What shoulders! One would think you were a boy playing at leap-frog."
"I don't know what 'leap-frog' is," said Maria, colouring; "and I don't think anybody would think I was anything but a girl anyhow. I get tired sitting up straight."
"When?" asked Clarissa.
Matilda's head was quite indescribable in the turn it gave at this moment. Her supper was done; she was leaving the table.
"You are not going into your mother's room?" said her aunt, catching her hand as she passed.
"You said you wished I would not."
"Yes, my dear, I am going up there immediately. Don't go out either, Matilda."
"I am going to church, Aunt Candy."
"I think not. Not to-night. I do not approve of so much church-going for little girls. You can study your lesson, you know, for next Sunday. I do not want to have anybody else sick on my hands till your mother is well."
Matilda's face expressed none of her disappointment; her head was even carried a little higher than usual as she left the room. But outside the door her steps flagged; and she went slowly up the stairs, asking herself if she was bound to mind what her aunt said. She was not clear about it. In the abstract, Matilda was well enough disposed to obey all lawful authority; just now a spirit of opposition had risen. Was this lawful authority? Mrs. Englefield was sick, to be sure; but did that give Mrs. Candy any right to interfere with what was known to be Mrs. Englefield's will when she was not sick? Matilda thought not. Then, on the other hand, she did not wish to do anything to displease her aunt, who had always been kind to her; she did not wish to change the relations between them. Slowly Matilda mounted stair after stair till she got to her room. There she stood by the window a moment, thinking and sorrowing; for if she did not wish to anger her aunt, neither did she wish to lose her evening in church, her sight of Mr. Richmond, and his sermon. And just then, the clear, sweet sound of the church bell came, with its first note, to tell that the service would begin in a quarter of an hour. It sounded like a friend's voice calling her. Her Aunt Candy's church bell joined in, and Mr. Everett's church, and Mr. Schönflocker's church; but that one which Mr. Ulshoeffer rang was the loudest of all to Matilda's ear. She could hardly stand it. Then Maria burst in.
"What are you going to do?" said Matilda.
"Do? Why, I am going to church, of course; and in a hurry."
"And Anne and Letty?"
"Certainly; and Issa too."
Matilda said no more, but hastily made herself ready, and went down with the rest.
CHAPTER IX
Anne and Letitia were to leave home in the afternoon of Monday; and Maria and Matilda went to school that morning as usual. But when the noon hour came, Matilda called her sister into a corner of the emptied schoolroom, and sat down with a face of business.
"What is the matter?" said Maria. "We must go home to dinner."
"I should like to speak to you here first."
"About what? Say it and be quick; for I am ever so hungry. Aunt Candy cut my breakfast short this morning."
"I wanted to say to you that we had better take home our books."
"What for?" said Maria, with opening eyes.
"Because, Maria, mamma was talking to me last night about it. You know there will be no one at home now, after to-day, but you and me."
"Aunt Erminia and Clarissa?"
"Nobody to do anything, I mean."
"Can't they do anything? I don't know what you are talking of, Matilda; but I know I want my dinner."
"Who do you think will get dinner to-morrow?"
"Well – mother's sick of course; and Anne and Letty are going. I should think Aunt Candy might."
"No, she won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because mother said so. She won't do anything."
"Then she'll have to get a girl to do things, I suppose."
"But Maria, that is just what mother wants she shouldn't do; because she'd have to pay for it."
"Who would have to pay for it?"
"Mamma."
"Why would she?"
"She said so."
"I don't see why she would, I am sure. If Aunt Erminia hires a girl, she'll pay for her."
"But that will come out of what Aunt Erminia pays to mamma; and what Aunt Erminia pays to mamma is what we have got to live upon."
"Who said so?"
"Mamma said so." Matilda answered with her lip trembling; for the bringing facts all down to hard detail was difficult to bear.
"Well, I do think," exclaimed Maria, "if I had a sister sick and not able to help herself, I would not be so mean!"
Matilda sat still and cried and said nothing.
"Who is going to do all the work then, Tilly?"
There would have been something comical, if it had not been sad, in the way the little girl looked up and said, "You and I."
"I guess we will!" said Maria, with opening eyes. "You and I! Take care of the house, and wash the dishes, and cook the dinner, and everything! You know we couldn't, Matilda; and what's more, I know we won't."
"Yes, mamma wishes it. We must; and so we can, Maria."
"I can't," said Maria, taking down her school cloak.
"But, Maria! we must. Mamma will be more sick if we do not; you heard what Aunt Candy said at breakfast, that she is fearfully nervous; and if she hears that there is a hired girl in the house, it will worry her dreadfully."
"It will be Aunt Candy's fault then," said Maria, fastening her cloak. "I never heard of anybody so mean in all my life! – never."
"But that don't help anything, Maria. And you and I must do what mamma said. You know we shall have little enough to live on, as it is, and if you take the pay of a hired girl out of it, there will be so little left."
"I've got my twenty-five dollars, that I can get summer dresses with; I am glad I haven't spent it," said Maria. "Come, Tilly; I'm going home."
"But, Maria, you have not said what you ought to say yet."
"What ought I to say?"
"I will help and do my part. We can manage it. Come, Maria, say that you will."
"Your part," said Maria. "What do you suppose your part would come to? What can such a child as you do?"
"Maria, now is the time to show whether you are really one of the Band of workers."
"I am, of course. I joined it."
"That would not make you one of them, if you don't do what they promised to do."
"When did I ever promise to be Aunt Candy's servant girl?" said Maria, fiercely. "I should like to know."
"But 'we are the servants of Christ,'" said Matilda, softly, her eyes glistening through.
"What then?"
"We promised to try to do whatever would honour Him."
"I don't know what all this affair has to do with it," said Maria. "You say we promised; – you didn't?"
"Yes, I did."
"You didn't join the Band?"
"Yes, I did."
"When?"
"A few days after you did."
"Why didn't you tell me? Did you tell Mr. Richmond?"
"Yes."
"I think it is mean, that you did not tell me."
"I am telling you now. But now, Maria, you know what you promised."
"I did not promise this sort of thing at all, Tilly."
"Yes, don't you know? 'we stand ready to do His will.' That's in the covenant."
"But this is not His will," insisted Maria. "This is Aunt Erminia's meanness."
"But it certainly is His will that we should do what mamma says, and please her; and this is the work He has given us to do."
Maria's answer this time was to sit down and cry for her part. Matilda did not join her, but stood by, patiently waiting. Maria cried and sobbed for several minutes; then she started up and set off homewards at a furious rate. Matilda gathered together her books and followed her sister; trying to comfort herself with the thought that this was certainly the work given them to do, and that she would try and make the best of it.
The dinner was sorrowful enough. Maria, indeed, ate it as if remembering it was the last dinner for some time to come that she would find ready prepared for her. But Anne and Letty were broken down with grief; and Mrs. Candy's endeavours to comfort them were either not the right sort, or fell upon unready ears. Clarissa was composed as usual.
"You were late from school, Maria and Matilda," their aunt remarked, finding Anne and Letty unmanageable. "What was the reason?"
"Tilly was talking to me," Maria said.
"You could talk on the way home, I should think. I dislike to have dinner eaten by stages; first one set coming, and then another. I am going to ask you to be punctual for the future. Do not be in a hurry, Maria; there is time enough, now you are here, to eat moderately."
"I am hungry. I don't want to eat moderately, Aunt Erminia."
"As much as you wish; but you can be moderate in manner, cannot you, even if not in quantity?"
"Nobody ever told me I eat too much, before," said Maria.
"There are a great many things that you have never been told, I suppose?" said Clarissa, lifting her handsome eyes quietly.
"I don't care about your telling me either," said Maria.
"My dear, that is not polite," interposed her aunt. "I am sorry to hear you speak so. Would you not like to have Issa, or any one, tell you things that you would be the better for. You would not wish to remain just as you are, to the end of your days?"
"It don't hurt anybody but me," said Maria.
"I beg your pardon. Everything that is not graceful and well-mannered, on the part of people in whose company we are, hurts me and Clarissa. It hurts me to have you bolt down your food as you were doing just now – if I am sitting at the same table with you. And it hurts me to have you speak rudely. I hope you will mend in all these things."
"It will not hurt you to have us say good-bye," said Anne, rising. "I will do that now, if you please. Letty, I will leave you to take care of these things, and I will finish the packing. We must be quick, too."
The farewell greetings with her aunt and cousin were soon spoken; and Maria and Matilda tore up-stairs after their sister, to pour out tears and complaints together during the remaining moments of her being at home. Matilda's tears, however, were quiet and her words very few.
"Ain't she too bad!" exclaimed Maria.
"You must try and hold your own the best you can," said Anne, "until mamma gets up again. Poor children! I am afraid she will be too much for you."
"But, Anne, did you think Aunt Candy was like that?" said Maria. "She wasn't like that at first."
"I guess she was. All she wanted was a chance. Now she's got it. Try and bear it the best you can till mamma is well. She cannot be worried now."
"Is mamma very sick, Anne?" Matilda ventured.
"N-o," said Anne, "but she might be, Tilly, if she was worried. The doctor says she is very nervous, and must be kept quiet. She has been worrying so long, you see. So you must try and not do anything to fret her."
The prospect was sad. When the omnibus came to take Anne and Letty to the station, and when the last kisses and hugs were over, and the omnibus bounced away, carrying with it all they had at the moment, the two girls left at home felt forlorn enough. The only thing to be done was to rush up-stairs to their room and cry their hearts out. And that was done thoroughly.
But by and by, Matilda's thoughts, in their very extreme need of comfort, began to take up the words again which she had once found so good: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord; He shall sustain thee." She left her sobbing, dried her eyes, sat down by the window, and found the place in her Bible, that her eyes might have the comfort of seeing and reading the words there. The Lord's words: Tilly knew they were true. But Maria sobbed on. At last her little sister called her.
"What is it?" said she.
"Come here, – and I will show you something good."
"Good? – what?" said Maria, approaching the window. "Oh, words in the Bible!"
"Read, Maria."
"I have read them before," said the other, sullenly, after she had glanced at the place.
"But they are true, Maria."
"Well; they don't help me."
"But they help me," said Matilda. "It's Jesus' promise to help."
"I don't believe it is for such things as this."
"Why not?" said Matilda, a sudden chill coming over her heart. "It says just, 'Cast thy burden' – it might be any burden; it does not signify what it is, Maria."
"Yes, it does; it is not for such little things," said Maria. "It is for great religious people and their affairs. Oh dear! oh dear!"
Sorely troubled now at having her supports knocked away from under her, Matilda eagerly sought further, if perchance she might find something that Maria could not question. Her Bible had a few references in the margin; consulting these, she presently found what she had need of; but a feeling of want of sympathy between them forbade her to show the new words to her sister. Matilda pored over them with great rest of heart; gave thanks for them; and might have used with truth David's language – "Thy words were found, and I did eat them." The words were these: —
"Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God that passeth understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
Matilda's eyes were dry and her voice was clear, when she reminded her sister that it was time to get tea. Maria was accustomed to do this frequently, and made no objection now. So the two went down together. Passing the parlour door, however, it opened, and Mrs. Candy called Matilda in.
"I want to speak a word to you, Tilly," she said. "Did you go out last evening?"
"Yes; I did, aunt Erminia."
"You went to church?"
Matilda assented; but though she had bowed her head, it seemed to be more erect than before.
"And I had told you not to go, had I not? You understood that?"
A silent assent was again all that the child gave.
"I am accustomed to be obeyed," said Mrs. Candy. "That is my way. It may not be your mother's way; but all the same, I am mistress here while she is sick; mistress over you as well as the rest. You must obey me like all the rest. Will you?"
What was meant by "all the rest" Matilda marvelled, seeing that nobody else but Maria and her own daughter were left in the house. This time she gave no sign of answering; she only stood and listened.
"Will you obey me, Tilly?"
Matilda was not sure whether she would. In her mind it depended on circumstances. She would obey, conditionally. But she would not compromise her dignity by words about it. She was silent.
"I must be obeyed," Mrs. Candy went on, with mild tones, although a displeased face. "If not willingly, then unwillingly. I shall punish you, Matilda, if you disobey me; and so severely that you will find it best not to do it again. But I should be very sorry to have you drive me to such disagreeable doings. We should both be sorry together. It is much best not to let things come to such extremity."
Matilda coloured high, but except that and the slight gesture of her head, she yet gave no reply.
"That is enough upon that subject," the lady went on. "Only, I should be glad to have you tell me that you will try to please me."
"I wish to please everybody – as far as I can," Matilda said at last.
"Then you will please me?"
"I hope so."
"She hopes so, Issa," said Mrs. Candy, turning her head round towards where her daughter sat.
"American children, mamma," was Clarissa's comment.
"There is another thing, Matilda," Mrs. Candy resumed after a slight pause. "Your mother has told me that Maria is competent to do the work of the house until she gets well. Is she? and will Maria, do you think, try to please me as much as you do?"
"Yes, ma'am. I think she can – she and I. We will do it," Matilda answered more readily.
"She and you! What can you do?"
"I can help a little."
"Well then, that is settled; and I need not look out for a girl?"
"Oh no, aunt Candy. She and I can do it."
"But mind, I must have things in order, and well done. It is my sister's choice, that Maria should do it. But it is not mine unless I can have everything in good order. You may tell Maria so, and let her understand what it is she is undertaking. I am to have no dusty stairs, and no half-set tables. If she wants instruction in anything, I am willing to give it; but I cannot have disorder. Now you may go and tell her; and tell her to have tea ready in half an hour."
"What did she want of you?" Maria asked, when Matilda rejoined her down-stairs.
"She wanted to talk to me about my going out last evening."
"Oh! was she in a great fuss about it?"
"And Maria, she wants tea to be ready in half an hour."
"I'll have it ready sooner than that," said Maria, bustling about.
"But you must not. She wants it in half an hour; you must not have it ready before."
"Why not?" said Maria, stopping short.
"Why, she wants it then. She has a right to have tea when she likes."
But Matilda sighed as she spoke, for her aunt's likings were becoming a heavy burden to her, in the present and in the future. The two girls went gently round, setting the table, cutting the bread, putting out the sweetmeat, getting the teapot ready for the tea; then they stood together over the stove, waiting for the time to make it.